On Sunday I pooped out on Mark's party and headed for my daughter and son-in-law's house on the west shore of Lake Tahoe. I didn't do any observing 12/31/00, but had my 10" set up on the deck for the next two nights. On 01/01/01 there were milky, streaky skies all day, but decent skies at night. You could tell there was "crud" up there, though. Tuesday night, the skies were much better, but my son-in-law remarked that the sky seemed brighter, especially in the east. I showed a guest M42 at 8:00 and some other fancy objects in the sky. At 11:00 pm I went out alone and observed. By then Orion was in the southern sky and I noticed how dark it was in that direction. I went to M42 again and was blown away!!! The difference of a darker sky was immense! My heart was pounding! I saw it in 3-D, with blue coloring, and the nubula was so crisp it was fascinating just viewing the in's and out's of its meadering trail. I didn't want to pull my eye away from the scope. This was a dark sky!!!!!
Then I realized that I hadn't been under a truly dark sky in sooooooooo long that I had forgotten the wonderment of M42 and why it is called the jewel of the sky. I had grown bored with looking at objects like this, but now I know why. I need really dark skies ("sans crud") to let objects jump out at me instead of looking like a muddled magazine pictures.